Dreaming In Red
by DarkMoonKilling
Summary: Rezo's thoughts on Shabranigdo, manipulation, lost and regained hope. Oh and how hope and freedom can come from the strangest people. Because he never wanted to be a villain. Goes from childhood to the battle against Shabranigdo in the first series.


**Dreaming In Red**

**Summary:** Rezo's thoughts on Shabranigdo, manipulation, lost and regained hope. Oh and how hope and freedom can come from the strangest people. Because he never wanted to be a villain.

**Disclaimer: ** Don't own anything; I'm really just playing in someone else's sandbox for a little while.

/

When Rezo was a child, he disliked the fact that he couldn't see. This fact didn't change as he grew up, but he did learn to deal with it. Still, he hated the fact that he couldn't do things that everyone else could. That he was teased and ridiculed by his peers. So, he vowed to study and become a mage. Not just any mage, but one of the greatest mages in the world, one that everyone would know the name of. Even though everyone said he wouldn't be able to do it, that his blindness meant he would never be a mage, he still tried his hardest, determined to prove everyone wrong. Although it was difficult and slow going, Rezo soon discovered that he had an affinity for magic. Soon, he discovered that there was a whole branch of magic devoted entirely to healing. For the first time, a small seed of hope took root in his very soul. _Could this be the answer? Could he heal himself? Lead a _normal_ life?_ As he learnt more and more, he found that the spells were rarely all that good at healing such delicate things as eyes. So he studied more, going into ever more esoteric branches of magic, creating and refining his own spells. He fully developed a spell to allow him to 'read' books and scrolls. Spells to help him 'see' things around him. They were poor imitations of true sight, more about sensing obstacles and giving the barest of information about them, vague outlines and shapes that were barely useful. But to Rezo, it was amazing. All his life all he'd never seen anything and suddenly the spells were giving him a way to do things others took entirely for granted. This only increased his desire for true sight even more.

As he studied and refined his spells, he eventually managed to create a spell that would heal damaged eyes. After trying it on a few poor people who were willing to submit themselves for the trial runs of his new spell, Rezo tried it on his own eyes. It was to his bitter disappointment that the spell failed. His dreams that night were tormented and haunted, but after a week-long depression he was filled with a renewed sense of grim determination. Looking back, Rezo thinks this is when the piece of Shabranigdo first started affecting him, pushing and driving his own ambition, but making him think it was just his own drive pushing him.

/

As the years pass and the failures pile up around him, he soon meets a young woman and falls in love. Soon, they are married and then the most wonderful news, she is pregnant. He is in love and full of happiness, so he is able to put his desire for true sight to the back of his mind for a while. Soon his child is born and for a while things are happy. It doesn't last. His child soon falls in love, marries and moves out. The news soon comes that he is to be a grandfather, but his wife's health is quickly deteriorating. She is soon on her death bed and no matter what he does he cannot heal her. He is by her side when she finally closes her eyes for the last time and he has never felt more of a failure. She doesn't blame him but he thinks that he could have done more for her, blames himself.

After the funeral, he locks himself away from the world, goes back to his old research on curing his eyes. He is acquiring and devouring knowledge so quickly that soon his home cannot contain all of it. His dream has quickly turned into an obsession by this point. Unknown to him at the time, Shabranigdo is still pushing him on, even more so now. His new obsession has opened a door for Shabranigdo to be able to begin corrupting his soul, allowing the Demon King more and more control. So he searches and soon finds an old tower in a somewhat isolated place which he buys and moves into, leaving his old home to his grandchild, that they can raise their family there. He still keeps an eye on his family, visits every now and then, but most important is finding a cure for his eyes. He does leave the tower relatively often, travelling to various towns, villages and cities, using newly created spells to heal the people he comes across to try them out before trying them on himself. He is spreading his reputation as a powerful healer and priest. But this is not all he is doing. When he is attacked by or comes across various bandits and thugs he captures them, sending them to his tower to use as experiments. He finds that he is starting to loose chunks of memory – an hour here, an hour there. At first, it is a rare occurrence, one he brushes off as him falling asleep, but gradually it starts happening more often. He can't bring himself to care though, because he finds that he has good ideas afterwards, small breakthroughs in his research.

/

As always he is keeping an eye on his small family, his child's partner has an accident in town trampled to death by a spooked horse. At the funeral he gives his support to his child and finds that his grand child has married and they are now expecting. He will be a great-grandfather. Several months later he is there for the birth of his great-grandson. Unfortunately, neither he nor the priestess who helped with the birth, were able to save the mother as she died from complications. He is given the honour of being the one who names the child. He names him Zelgadis.

After the birth he finds that the blank spots in his memory are happening more often and for greater periods of time. For some reason he starts to find books on chimeras and their creation in his library as well as demon summoning. He finds odd ritual circles drawn in some of the rooms in the tower. He is wandering through a small town when he stumbles across an old temple which contains information on the Demon Lords. Reading through it, he is awed by the power they hold, especially Shabranigdo. As he reads he comes to a conclusion, his thoughts unknowingly pushed to reach it, that if he resurrects the Demon King, Shabranigdo will gift him with the ability to see. He begins to search for the Philosophers Stone. His great-grandson, Zelgadis, soon comes to him on one of the occasions that he is visiting his family to ask for help with becoming stronger. Rezo tells him to keep practicing with the sword and that when he next visits he will take him and begin training him in magic. That he will make Zelgadis stronger that he could ever imagine. After travelling back to his tower and preparing it for Zelgadis' arrival, Rezo prepares for an extensive searching ritual to try to find the Philosophers Stone. The ritual fails, and he is left exhausted. His last memory is of him collapsing in his bed, utterly drained. He wakes up to find that several months have passed, that Zelgadis is now living with him in his tower and that he has turned his dear great-grand son into a chimera. This, more than anything, makes Rezo realise that something is wrong, but he soon realises that there is nothing he can do, so he continues on with his search, as well as teaching Zelgadis magic. Soon he declares him ready and sends him out with the little group of followers he has gathered to find the Philosophers Stone. Eventually, he sees that Zelgadis has crossed paths with a young but powerful sorceress, with her managing to get the better of him. Rezo decides to meet with the sorceress to try to get the orihalcon statue off of her himself. Amusingly, the young lady, Lina, talks him into letting her keep the statue, having them team up against Zelgadis after he tells her a slightly twisted version of Zelgadis' story.

Soon, Zelgadis manages to capture her, but eventually the silly boy sets her free and betrays him. After he confronts the pair in the forest and they manage to flee, he decides that there are other ways to get the statue and so sets various minions after them, keeping an eye on the pair the entire time. Even after they manage to defeat his minions, including the mazaku he sends after them, with the help of Lina's bodyguard, he continues to keep checking up on them. Privately, Rezo is amused by them, as well as how much Zelgadis reacts to Lina. Perhaps the boy has fallen in love with the sorceress? It is a shame that they will probably all be killed by Shabranigdo, he's not had this much fun in a long time. Once they arrive at his tower, Rezo is surprised and impressed by Lina's intelligence, as she manages to figure out the majority of his plan from the few scraps of information she has. He is devastated once he realises the truth of why he was cursed with blindness, when Shabranigdo devours him and traps his soul. It's foolish of him, but he hopes that the little group manages to defeat the Demon King and free him. Predictably, they flee after realising that none of their attacks will work, with one of the group having had his own spell turned against him. Rezo gives up all hope. All he knows, trapped within the suffocating malice of the Demon King, is despair and regret. Regret for all that he has done, especially to Zelgadis and regret for unleashing Shabranigdo upon the world once more. He is resigned to being trapped and forced to watch as hell is unleashed upon the world. Shabranigdo…laughs at him. Laughs at nothing and everything.

/

Suddenly, Rezo feels the malice and dark amusement shift slightly. He begins to become aware of some familiar magical signatures. Surely not? Zelgadis and Lina have returned to face the Demon King? Rezo turns his attention outwards, in time to catch the seeming end of the battle. Then, he hears it. Hears _Lina._ She's standing fearlessly before the Demon King, sword in hand and summoning power…_from a Lord greater than Shabranigdo?_ Once more, hope begins to grow in his soul, rising surprisingly quickly. He can _feel_ the power Lina is calling. Then, she calls out to him. Tells him it's time to make a choice. _"Will you let your soul be consumed?"_ She asks. _"Will you take your vengeance?"_ And then, she casts the Giga Slave.

He is so taken aback that for a long moment he can do nothing, unable to react in any way. As Lina casts, so too does the Demon King and the two spells war. Making his decision, Rezo gathers what power is left in his soul and freezes the Demon King, disrupting and destabilising his spell, allowing Lina's to break through and fatally wound the Demon King. It is all he can do to repent somewhat for his actions. After Shabranigdo allowed himself to be killed, as his own soul faded away, he managed to pass one final message along. _"Thank you."_ After all, he had never wanted to be a villain. As he faded, he couldn't help but muse on two final thoughts. _Hope comes from the strangest places. I hope Zelgadis gets up the courage to ask Lina to be his. He could do far worse than her…_

_/_

_/_

AN _Wrote this because, despite everything, I like Rezo. I don't think he was the one who cursed Zel, I think that old Shaby was behind a lot of the stuff that Rezo did – gave him a bit of an unnoticed push and manipulated him a bit. So, I think that Rezo regretted a lot of what happened, especially towards the end when he unsealed, and was taken over by, Shabranigdo. This, too me, would explain why he helped Lina defeat Shabranigdo at the start of the series. What are everyone else's thoughts?_


End file.
